Taylorville boys basketball team could struggle to take next step

With the return of four starters from last season's Class 3A Mattoon Regional champions, Taylorville High School second-year coach Carey McVickers could be expected to be highly optimistic about his Tornadoes' chances this season. He isn't.

TAYLORVILLE — Not too long ago, preseason basketball conversations about Taylorville High School began with just one question: "Will the Tornadoes win a game?"

But all it took for that to change was an 18-16 record last season that included three championship trophies and a turnaround unexpected by all but perhaps the most Pollyanna-ish supporters.

With the return of four starters from last season's Class 3A Mattoon Regional champions, second-year coach Carey McVickers could be expected to be highly optimistic about his Tornadoes' chances this season.

He isn't.

"You'd think that we have four starters back and things are kind of set; it hasn't worked that way," McVickers said. "It's hard to say how we're going to build off last year because that's not happened yet."

Walking wounded

Injuries started taking their toll before the season even began when last season's sixth-leading scorer in the Central State Eight Conference, Kyle Wilhour, suffered a stress fracture in the lumbar portion of his spine.

He participated in nearly no basketball-related activities from June until mid-November and even missed the first four practices of the preseason.

While he was getting up to speed, Taylorville turned to another player — Grant Livingston — to fill the void. Things were going to plan for the senior Livingston as the Tornadoes were rolling toward a second Stove Top Stuffing Classic championship in the season-opening tournament.

Livingston was on the way to being named tournament MVP after averaging 13.8 as Taylorville went 4-0 when things turned sour for him. In the title game against Nokomis, the 6-foot-2 Livingston attempted to dunk a ball and hit his left wrist, breaking a bone. He will be sidelined for 4-6 weeks.

"I've always stressed to the boys we're one game at a time. We're not going out on a limb saying we're going to win the Central State Eight or we're going to win X amount of games," McVickers said. "That's never been more important than this year.

"We may have to use more smoke and mirrors than ever before."

The highs and lows had Livingston comparing the emotions of the previous season with the exact 4-1 start this season.

"I definitely think we were on top of the roller coaster last year," he said.

Room to grow

The turnaround last season vaulted Taylorville from a team that had gone 4-113 over a four-year span to an overall win total sixth in the conference. It's 2-14 mark in CS8 play still placed it eighth of the nine teams.

The 18 wins were the most for the Tornadoes since the 1983-84 team went 23-6.

"It really built our confidence up after being 1-59 from our freshman and sophomore years," senior point guard Jeff McChristy said. "We needed something to lift us up, and last year really did that."

Page 2 of 2 - And while the turnaround created lots of good feelings, McVickers knew his team had to get much better coming into this season, especially in the rebounding department.

But with five guards on the court at most times, rebounding remains an issue.

"The thing I've preached all year is we have to rebound better, and we haven't," McVickers said. "We haven't had two guys add up to 10 rebounds yet in a single game.

"Because I've got some athletic kids, they don't think they have to turn and box out. They think they can out-jump people. Well, we're not going to out-jump people in the Central State Eight."

And that's not the only leap the Tornadoes are hoping to make. But health might determine how high they get off the ground.